Hermione's confession
by charbar
Summary: 7th year. Hermione feels that she has to admit her feelings for someone else, but can't do it without embarrassing herself. Some awkwardness ensues. Please read and review you know you want to!
1. The trouble with telling a friend

Hello everyone! This is my very first fanfic that I have ever let anyone else read cuz the others were all too crap. Even though I bet that all of you hate to read these words, please REVIEW!!! It would mean so much to me to get all of your opinions on my story, and even if you think it's crap, please tell me ways that I can improve so that next time it may be a little better! Anyway, please read on and don't forget to R/R! luv y'all, hugs etc. xox

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Set: In the Three Broomsticks

Seated at a table in the corner of the Three Broomsticks were Harry and Hermione, pink-cheeked from the cold wind outside, and accompanied by several large and bulging bags – they had been Christmas shopping, but Ron had been unable to come due to excessive amounts of homework due in the following day. At Hermione's insistence he had stayed behind to complete it, but only on the condition that his two friends brought him back an early Christmas present. The two afore mentioned friends were now searching the menu in the hope of finding something warming but not too expensive, having spent practically their very last galleon.

"I'll get the drinks then, shall I?" said Harry.

"Sure," said Hermione.

"The usual, then? Butterbeer?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"OK. Back in a tick."

As he walked to the counter to talk to Madame Rosmerta, Hermione sat deep in thought. She ran through her mind all the things she had bought on today's shopping spree. It really was very good of Harry to accompany her to Hogsmede; she knew how much boys were supposed to hate shopping, particularly with female friends who had a tendency to stop and gaze into every shop window and reply to the question, "why are you looking in _there_ cuz none of it's nice/suitable/affordable?" with something along the lines of "because it's interesting" or "why not?" or "I might find something I like" or, worst of all, the response to which there is no rebuke, "because girls like to do that sort of thing." She really appreciated Harry and Ron when they did things like that – just accept her whims and play along with them. (not that they did that terribly often. Mostly they just laughed and went off to play Quidditch or something like that, and left her to her own devices. Once they had gone, Hermione always felt a little lonely, though she wouldn't ever even dream of admitting that to either of them.)

"Heya. Whatcha thinking about?" asked Harry, returning laden with two butterbeers and a bowl of some small sticky fruit things that Hermione had never seen before. "Reckon we've bought every thing we need?"

"Yeah, I reckon so."

"Cool."

There was a long pause.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you think R …" she trailed off.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Oh."

Another even longer pause. Both of them looked around everywhere except at each other and took large slurps from their tankards, Harry because he had nothing else to do and couldn't think of any thing to say, and Hermione because she had too much to say and couldn't think of any way of saying it and so filled the silence by drinking.

Hermione put down her tankard with a clunk slightly harder than she meant to. Some of her butterbeer slopped out over the sides. Harry looked at her slightly surprised; it really wasn't like Hermione to be clumsy. He stared at her questioningly, eyebrows raised.

"Sorry, Harry."

"Don't worry," he hastened to reassure her. "I just wondered why …?" he stopped and glanced at the little puddle of spilt butterbeer on the table between them and then looked back at Hermione's blushing face and frowned slightly. _Why was she blushing? I didn't say anything embarrassing did I? What _is_ she thinking about?_

Hermione was in a state of mental crisis. She really had to get this off her chest, but couldn't quite believe that she had to say this to Harry, who, however nice he was, was undeniably a _boy_and she really wasn't sure how he would take this.

"OK … Harry … doyoupromisenevertoletanyoneelseknowwhatiamabouttotellyou?" said Hermione, incredibly quickly.

"Uh… sorry?"

Harry was so confused. What was it Hermione was trying – rather unsuccessfully - to tell him? Hermione was normally one of the most verbally able and fluent of speakers. What had come over her all of a sudden?

Hermione took a deep breath. "Will you please try not to tell anyone else any of what I am going to tell you?" She looked at him feeling terribly embarrassed, and saw that, to her surprise, he looked amazingly compliant to her request and seemed ready to take whatever it was she wished to confide in him to the grave.

"I find this incredibly hard to say, but for some time now, I have felt rather differently about a certain person… who you know well…" she paused, waiting to see his reaction.

A reel of people flashed through Harry's mind, rather like a muggle slideshow, some fading in and wooshing out, others flashing, but none of them seemed to be possible candidates for the subject of Hermione's sudden confession. Harry assumed that the person she was referring to was someone who she had a crush on – Harry knew from rumours that girls had a tendency to behave this way when they had a crush, but he had never really imagined himself being the person that anyone would run to for counselling.

"This person is… well, I mean that he… " _Aha_ thought Harry, _it's a boy. So she has got a crush on someone. I wonder who?_

Hermione ploughed on. "It's someone you know extremely well, in fact."

Harry's mind gave a jerk. The mental slideshow stopped on a picture of Ron. Ron, his best friend for so many years. Ron, also Hermione's best friend for many years. Ron, who was currently sitting innocently (well, as innocently as any of the Weasley boys could be expected to be) alone in the Gryffindor common room. Ron, who thought that Hermione was still going out with Viktor Krum. Ron, whom Harry secretly had suspected for some time now actually fancied Hermione anyway, and whom Harry knew was insanely jealous every time that Hermione received a letter from Krum and read it incessantly, scrutinising every last word. It had to be him.

Now that Harry thought about it, it all made sense. He had noticed, without really noticing, only the other day that when Hermione had tripped on the corner of one of the invisible steps and staggered into Ron, he had grabbed her elbow and held her slightly longer than was absolutely necessary and made a great show of checking that she was alright. Hermione had turned surprisingly red but Harry had dismissed it as the result of their running up the staircase to get to Transfiguration. And a couple of weeks ago at breakfast just before the Gryffindor quidditch match against Ravenclaw, Ron had been late arriving, and Hermione had been fretting about him fainting in midair, when Ron had appeared and Hermione immediately started doling out croissants and toast with jam onto his plate before Ron had even sat down.

Harry thought, then said carefully, "and this… person, do you know if he feels the same way about you?"

"Well, that's just the thing," said Hermione, going pink again. "I don't."

"Oh. And I'm guessing that this person is –"

"What?! You know who it is? Does he know?" interrupted Hermione, rather frantic, and she gripped Harry's hand suddenly, jerking his tankard and causing more butterbeer to slop onto the table.

"Hey, cool it, Hermione." Harry carefully replaced his tankard on the table and looked Hermione in the eye. "Yes, I think that I do know who it is, but as far as I can tell, he is completely unaware of your feelings for him. " He paused to give Hermione some time to calm herself a bit. After a minute, he fixed her with a firm eye and continued, "but what YOU may not know is that he loves you too."

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There you go. The first chapter of my first fic done. Please please please review now? I'll try to update sometime, if I get reviews. Thanks in advance to those who review for me. xoxox 


	2. On the road home

Wow, I didn't really expect that so many people would read chapter 1 and actually bother to review! Thank you all my luffly reviewers! As a tokens of thanks to you, and because it's January 2005, and just because I feel like it (!) here is the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it. Btw, sorry I have been so long in updating, but I've had exams for the past 2 weeks and before that I had to revise, so I really didn't get much chance to write the next chapter.

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Set: The road back to Hogwarts

Harry and Hermione walked slowly back along the snow covered road from Hogsmede back to school. They were laden with their shopping but Hermione didn't really seem to notice how heavy her bags were. True, she had done the _locomotor _charm on one of them to carry it back to school, but the only thing really weighing down on her at that moment was _how was she supposed to tell Ron what she had just told Harry???_ It was all very well for Harry to reassure her that Ron liked her just as much as she liked him, but that didn't help the fact that she was going to have to be the one who voiced it first – why was it that boys were just so… embarrassed about the whole thing? Admittedly, Hermione was extremely embarrassed about it too, but _she_ was actually doing something about it wasn't she?

Harry didn't quite know what to say. Even though he was pleased that Hermione liked Ron as much as Ron liked her, he was now involved in the whole getting-it-out-in-the-open scheme too, and he wasn't sure how Ron was going to take the fact that his best friend knew before he did himself. Although the silence between Hermione and Harry was quite amicable and the snow covered road was quite beautiful, Harry wanted to say _something_, just to break the silence.

"Hermione?"

"Mmm?"

"How are you going to, you know… tell Ron?"

Hermione sighed and said, "that's just what I was wondering. _How???_"

"Tricky, huh?"

"Yeah. But the thing is," she said, looking sideways at Harry, "how do I know that he won't just laugh it off in my face? I mean," she said slightly angrily as Harry gave a great snort of disbelief, "you know how similar to Fred and George he is in some ways, and they certainly wouldn't treat anything like this with even the remotest sign of seriousness."

"Look, Hermione," Harry said to her, once he was certain that he had control over the muscles that kept twitching his face into a grin, "I know Ron. And I know the twins. And believe it or not, I also know you. Now I can tell you perfectly seriously that Ron would not laugh in your face if he could tell how serious you were. I won't, and I'm sure they wouldn't themselves, deny that the twins most probably would laugh if someone told them that they loved them, but Ron has always been very different in that respect. Now all I can suggest in this case is that you just get it all out in the open and be straight and candid with Ron. You know how much he hates other people talking about secrets that he doesn't know."

Harry looked at Hermione and saw that she was thinking really hard. He hoped that his small speech had helped, but he had little hope that it really meant anything significant – he had just said it all without really thinking, his main aim being just to console and calm Hermione, and not to make it sound like he actually knew what he was talking about. Harry sighed and thought introspectively, _yeah, it's fine for me to try to help them sort out their feelings for each other, but if and when they ever get together, how will I feel about it? I mean, they're my two best friends, and boyfriends and girlfriends do like to spend some time alone together. What will I do if they do that? Who will I hang around with?_ He glanced at Hermione again, and noticed that she seemed to be quite happy, even though she was clearly quite at a loss at how to vocalise her feelings to the very person that they involved. Harry felt a little voice in his mind (the one that for some reason always spoke in a feminine voice which he vaguely recognised but could never quite place) argue back, _but what right do you have to spoil their potential happiness together? If they so clearly want to be together and you know that they get along already, why do you have to be so self-pitying? Maybe Rita Skeeter was right – I am an attention-seeking disturbed teenager._ But then his own voice in his mind said, _Hey, you know perfectly well that that Skeeter woman is a complete and utter cow and a liar – Dumbledore himself said as much, and like Hermione said, if you can't trust Dumbledore, who can you trust? Just let Ron and Hermione do what they want. If they're true friends then you'll never feel alone_.

Suddenly, Hermione grabbed his arm and said, "Harry, let's go this way, come on!" She dragged his arm forwards and tried to lead him onto the opposite pavement, and moaned in his ear, "please, if we're quick they might not see us…"

"Who? Who might not see us?"

"Them, they're the last people I want to see right now…" said Hermione, gesturing towards a little knot of oncoming people. Harry peered at them and in the fading light, just made out a glint of white-blond hair. Malfoy and his gang.

Harry quickened his pace, but unfortunately stumbled, just as people always do when they least need something like that to happen. Harry grabbed onto Hermione's arm to hold himself upright, but Malfoy being Malfoy of course saw Harry trip and laughed loudly across the road, calling "enjoy the trip, Potter?"

"Just ignore him, Harry," Hermione whispered, and she threw a dirty glance over her shoulder at Malfoy.

"Hey, touched a raw nerve, have I Granger? You don't mean to say that mudbloods are so poor that they can't even afford something like a sense of humour?"

"Push off, Malfoy!" Harry shouted. "Haven't you got anything better to do than hang around street corners and throw unwitty remarks at anyone who passes by?"

"Oooooh!" squeaked Malfoy, in a high-pitched, girly voice. "Scared of the big bad boys marauding at the corner, are we?" Crabbe and Goyle, predictably, grunted laughs. Malfoy, encouraged by his apparently appreciative audience, carried on. "The mudblood and the scarhead need each other to stand up to those scaaary people, do they? Hey! _Scarhead and the Mudblood._ Don't you think that sounds like one of those old-fashioned muggle cartoons? Yeah, I bet that those stupid muggles who scrape a living on writing cartoons base them on hopeless cases like _Scarhead and the Mudblood_! Maybe it helps them to feel more famous… _Scarhead and the Mudblood! Scarhead and the Mudblood! Scarhead and the Mudblood!_"

Hermione tutted loudly, picked up their shopping bags, and pulled Harry around and started dragging him back up the road towards the castle. They could still hear Malfoy's chant of "_Scarhead and the Mudblood! Scarhead and the Mudblood!_" drifting across the snowy road back behind them, rather spoiling the otherwise beautiful scene. "So immature!" Hermione muttered.

"I'm sick of him doing stuff like that!" Harry said, vehemently, "If he does that one more time, he'd better watch out that I haven't got my wand to hand!"

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There ya go! Sorry it isn't a very long chapter, and not much really happens, but it was really just me trying to write about how I thought that the characters would be feeling. The next chapter will be **much** more interesting!

Hints about the next chapter:

Hermione will actually confront Ron about how she feels.

But will Ron respond in a Ron-like way?

So please, please, please review, even if it is to tell me how bored you were while reading this chapter!


	3. Actually telling someone

heya, here is chapter 3 - hopefully you like it. I don't know if I should end it here or not... Maybe you can tell me what you think?

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Harry and Hermione were talking quite amicably by the time they reached the portrait hole and all the embarrassed stiffness that had been imminent whilst walking towards Hogwarts was now gone. Hermione had decided that the best way to tell Ron about her feelings for him was to try to hint at them and see if he reciprocated in a similar fashion; however, she was slightly concerned how to get Harry out of the way while she did this. Although he had been her first confidante, she couldn't help but feel a little awkward with the idea of his presence at her moment of emotional difficulty. Hermione knew though, that Harry was quite a spontaneous person and so would probably catch on to some other distraction and use it as an excuse to absent himself from his friends if he realised that that was what they wanted.

"_Gobbledegook_"

The portrait hole swung open and Harry and Hermione climbed through, to find themselves in an empty common room, save for the pair of large, maroon clad feet that were just visible over the back of an armchair by the fire.

"Ron?" Harry called.

"Yeah. That you Harry?"

The pair of feet disappeared as Ron swung himself the right way up and stood up behind the armchair, rubbing his eyes as if just woken from a snooze. He peered blearily at his two friends standing before him.

"Her…Her…mione?" he said, stifling a yawn. "You get good stuff for Christmas?"

Hermione grinned shyly, and said, with a mock stern tone, "Did you get all your homework done while we were out?"

"Aww, come on Hermione, give me a break. I had three essays to write, not to mention that damn charm to practise. But since you asked, yes, I did finish it all."

"Well, congratulations. And," she said, grinning again at the boys, "since you asked, yes, I did get good stuff for Christmas."

She and Harry moved over to where Ron was standing by the fireplace and sat down in two other armchairs, and Harry muttered "Accio" at the shopping bags which they had dumped by the portrait hole as they came in, and the bags zoomed over to where they were sitting. Hermione delved into one of them and pulled out a magical mirror that they had bought for Ginny and she showed it to Ron.

"We thought Ginny would like this. See how it works? You tap the frame with your wand," she demonstrated, "and you tell it what you are going to do or where you are going to go that day. _Chatting to friends in the common room._ See? And now it should show me possible suggestions for what to wear and what colour scheme to follow for my makeup!" and the mirror did indeed flash various images of Hermione in different clothes with different hairstyles at her, and she tapped the glass on one that she particularly liked, showing her with her hair in loose ringlets, tied back with a pale pink ribbon, and dressed in grey jeans with a pink top, and wearing spangly earrings. "What do you think of that?" she asked, holding the mirror up in front of Ron's face. He looked at the mirror with a slightly amused expression and raised his eyes to catch Harry's and they shared an _aren't girls weird? _look.

"It's just what Ginny'll love," he said. He then glanced up at Harry again and said, with a grin, "I know that she likes to look good for a certain person around here and this present will sure make her happy!" and he winked suggestively.

"Oh, shut up, Ron," said Harry, but he struggled to keep the grin that was fighting its way upwards off his face.

"Harry," said Hermione suddenly, as an inspiration came to her, "why don't you take the stuff upstairs because Ginny or someone might come in at any minute and see it and then they won't be surprises for Christmas."

Harry latched on to her idea pretty quickly and grinned to himself. If that was how she felt happiest telling Ron, then he wasn't going to stop her. He got up and made a bit of a show of struggling with the bags, so that Ron wouldn't suspect anything untoward about Harry's leaving. "See you in a bit," he said, and walked over to the staircase to the dormitories, taking care to accidentally bump into the doorframe as he negotiated the stairs.

Once out of his friends' sight, he ran straight up the stairs to his dormitory and dumped the bags under his bed. All he had to do now was wait for a reasonable amount of time so that Hermione could explain to Ron about her feelings for him, and Ron could reply. Feeling slightly nervous for some reason, Harry pulled a quidditch magazine out from under his bedside table and lay down on his stomach on his four-poster bed and started to read.

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Hermione turned to Ron and looked at him. She took a deep breath, and then looked away as he looked up and caught her eye. His cheeks flamed bright red right up to his hairline immediately, and he too looked away. Hermione glanced back at him and noticed the colour of his face. It made her stomach jump slightly, and she thought to herself _"maybe Harry was right! He does like me! Why else would he be so embarrassed to catch my eye while we're alone here?"_ Whether it was this moment of realisation or the simple human dislike for awkward extended silences that embouldened Hermione to speak, she was not sure, but she did know that once she had started speaking, things became simultaneously ten times easier and ten times worse.

"Uh, Ron?"

He coloured again, and then grunted without looking at her, "Yeah."

"I was just wondering if you felt… well, what I meant to say is…" She paused and looked dejectedly at the floor. Ron looked up at her again, and realised that she was trying to say something that, for some reason, was giving her trouble.

"What?" he said, roughly, and tried to look as if he wasn't every bit as embarrassed as she was.

"OK. Please, just for a few minutes, can you try not to laugh at anything I say? Because there's something really important that I want to tell you but I don't know how to. I'm sort of… finding it quite difficult right now, so please will you just listen and not laugh?" Hermione gazed pleadingly at him and her eyes searched his face for an expression of compliance. Ron blinked and, looking rather bemused, nodded slowly.

"Sure."

"Cool." Hermione took a deep breath and let it out again before turning to face Ron and staring him straight in the eyes. Finding this somewhat too direct, she settled for looking at his chest, and for a moment couldn't help feeling a small impulse that willed her to place her hand flat on it, and feel his heart beating, a steady and constant beat, which was so completely contrasting with the flurry of beats that she could feel in her own chest. She paused and said, "for quite a few months now, I have been feeling rather… _differently_ about something and now I think that I have to confess this to you. I have been thinking about how best to say this to you but have come to the conclusion that the best way would be just to tell you, plain and straight, and not to try to hint at anything, because I know how much you hate misunderstanding certain things. This _thing_ that I am about to tell you is very important to me, and I expect that it will be very important to you too, and so I want to be absolutely certain that there will be no misunderstandings whatsoever. So here goes… Ron, I think that I … I mean, I don't think, I know that I… Oh god, this is hard. Ron, I like you. No, screw that, _I love you_. There. I said it."

Hermione looked up at Ron's face now, and held his gaze ever so gently, as she longed to hold him physically. "I don't know now whether or not I feel any better about it than I did before, but at least you know how I feel, and I had hoped that, maybe, you might be able to tell me if you like me even a little?"

Ron looked lost. He was lost in confusion, in shock, in bewilderment, in disbelief. Here he was, convinced for so many months that the person who he liked more than words could reasonably express cared for him only as a friend, only to be told by the person herself that she loved _him_. He thought that fate never worked that way, or if it did, it was only because something equally bad as this was wonderful, had already happened. But there was Hermione, sitting in front of him, looking both incredibly nervous and incredibly exhilarated. She clearly expected him to do something, but what was he supposed to do? He looked up at her, stunned, and blinked. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Ron realised suddenly, that he wasn't breathing. The whole world seemed to be holding its breath along with him as he slowly reached out his hand towards her, his fingers groping in the air for something solid, something he could touch and know was real. Then he fingers felt something and they grabbed hold of it. It was Hermione's hand.

"Ron? Are you ok?" Hermione's eyes searched his face. As she leant towards him, he felt her hair brush his face. Suddenly he knew exactly what he was supposed to do.

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Harry's back was beginning to hurt. Having propped himself up on his elbows for so long, he was distinctly feeling it in his muscles. Giving in, he flopped forwards onto the bed. Turning his head sideways so that his glasses wouldn't dig into his face, he wondered how Hermione was getting on downstairs with Ron. If it had been anyone else down there, his curiosity may have urged him to go and have a look at what was going on wearing his invisibility cloak, but Harry had respect for his best friends, and knew that if they were to be interrupted, they'd rather see who it was. A sudden brainwave sent Harry diving into his school bag for the Marauders' Map. Tapping it, he whispered, "I solomnly swear that I am up to no good," and the walls and people of Hogwarts began to appear. Sifting through the pages to the Gryffindor common room, Harry held the tiny diagram up close to his eyes. The little tiny dots labelled "Hermione Granger" and "Ronald Weasley" were very close together, practically on top of each other in fact. And they weren't moving very much either.

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Hermione's eyes were closed. Ron's eyes were closed. And their lips were touching very gently, in the softest and most expressive gesture that showed how much they loved each other.

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Wow! I didn't know I was going to write it like that! Please tell me what you think ... 


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